Showing papers in "Thesis Eleven in 2004"
TL;DR: The authors contextualized Jeffrey Alexander's cultural sociology within the broader trajectory of his intellectual development, and sketched the key ideas of his cultural sociology in a sketch of the key moments of his development.
Abstract: I pursue three aims in this article: (1) a contextualization of Jeffrey Alexander’s cultural sociology within the broader trajectory of his intellectual development; (2) a sketch of the key ideas o...
40 citations
TL;DR: The main challenge to modern Islam, coming from the global political culture in the form of constitutionalism and democratization and human rights, has set in motion a civilizational encounter that has significantly altered the politico-religious dynamics of the proto-global, pre-modern Islamic pattern.
Abstract: This article examines the ways in which Islamic civilization has faced the challenges of the modern age and of globalization. The expansion of Islam in world history is itself a global or proto-global process with its own distinctive internal dynamics. The main challenge to modern Islam, coming from the global political culture in the form of constitutionalism and democratization and human rights, has set in motion a civilizational encounter that has significantly altered the politico-religious dynamics of the proto-global, pre-modern Islamic pattern. The intermingling of these inter- and intra-civilizational processes is traced with respect to the subversion of constitutionalism by ideology during the 1945–1989 period, and the slow recovery of the rule of law since 1989. The same framework of civilizational analysis is used for understanding Islamic fundamentalism, and counter-global defensive developments in contemporary Islam.
39 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a double conceptual framework is deployed to define the notions of absolute strangers and outsiders in modern citizenship, where the citizen-as-absolute-stranger in addition to accruing political rights may also accrue social, economic or identity rights or traverse wider relations between him or herself and other absolute strangers in either national or international settings.
Abstract: This article deploys a double conceptual framework. One frame is positioned through the ideas of absolute strangers and outsiders. The other frame develops out of, though is distinct from, the first, and refers to the disaggregated forms of modern citizenship. The citizen-as-absolute-stranger in addition to accruing political rights may also accrue social, economic or identity rights, or traverse wider relations between him or herself and other absolute strangers in either national or international settings. It is in this context that outsiders are configured - aliens who have no national-juridical status
36 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the relation between structural exclusion and the attribution of strangeness in modern Western history, and suggested an alternative to Simmel and Merton's and Coser's earlier structural-functional reconceptualization of stranger theory.
Abstract: Simmel develops his concept of the stranger in an overly structural and reductionist manner. Contrary to Simmel’s suggestion, there is an indeterminate relation between structural exclusion and the attribution of strangeness. After showing that ‘the stranger’ must be rethought in a cultural-sociological way, this essay demonstrates an alternative approach. Articulating a ‘discourse’ that structures Western projections of strangeness, I explore its relation to colonialism, racial and class domination, and national conflict in modern Western history. This approach suggests an alternative, not only to Simmel but to Merton’s and Coser’s earlier structural-functional reconceptualization of stranger theory.
33 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the historical preconditions and construction of that model of progressive politics and discuss its relevance today and its future prospects, arguing that there is nothing historically predetermined of a progressive development path.
Abstract: Nordic modernity is often understood in terms of enlightened and progressive welfare politics and social equality. There is a more or less implicit connotation to images of a social democratic model. The aim of this article is twofold: to discuss the historical preconditions and construction of that model of progressive politics, and to discuss its relevance today and its future prospects. Concerning the first aim, the argument is that there is nothing historically predetermined of a progressive development path. Nordic modernity should not be understood as teleology or as given by a natural state of egalitarian peasant communities. Historically, all the Nordic societies except Iceland were under authoritarian or absolute rule. However, there were factors underpinning a more progressive and egalitarian development in the North, in particular the strength of the peasant freeholders and of the urban middle classes. The argument in this article is that these forces finally broke through in the 1930s as a res...
32 citations
[...]
TL;DR: In the first millennium CE trade and kinship networks linked Western Europe and Central Asia via Scandinavia and the Russian rivers as discussed by the authors, but these networks broke down when the early states began to emerge in Scandinavia during the 11th and 12th centuries, concurrent with the Christianization of the far North.
Abstract: In the first millennium CE trade and kinship networks linked Western Europe and Central Asia via Scandinavia and the Russian rivers. These networks broke down when the early states began to emerge in Scandinavia during the 11th and 12th centuries, concurrent with the Christianization of the far North. Two cultural fault-lines mark Nordic history – between Western and Eastern Christendom and between feudal and non-feudal societies – and make this region distinct from Russia and Germany. The Swedish state, with Finland as an integral part of the realm until the 19th century, was neither a composite monarchy, nor a feudal or despotic state. Sweden was one of the largest but also least populated countries in Europe. Its relative lack of resources led to unusual but efficient techniques of state-making demonstrated in two periods when Sweden was prominent in an all-European perspective: first as a Great Power (1620–1720) when it developed characteristics that did not appear elsewhere in Europe until the 20th c...
30 citations
TL;DR: This paper argued that racist attitudes of the Australian Liberal Government, and John Howard in particular, hide deeper unconscious processes that are historically embedded in the national imaginary, and these unconscious processes are manifested in the invasion complex which lies just below the surface of Australia's political culture.
Abstract: The political and social reaction to the ‘refugee crisis’ in Australia cannot be solely understood in purely geo-political or economic terms. Neither can the persistence of racism in Australian political culture be explained in terms of its electoral advantage. This article contends that the racist attitudes of the Australian Liberal Government, and John Howard in particular, hide deeper unconscious processes that are historically embedded in the national imaginary. These unconscious processes are manifested in the invasion complex which lies just below the surface of Australia’s political culture.
29 citations
TL;DR: In a comparative context, Danish national identity and political culture combine features of what is often referred to as East European integral nationalism as mentioned in this paper, typical of smaller, recently independe....
Abstract: In a comparative context, Danish national identity and political culture combine features of what is often referred to as East European integral nationalism , typical of smaller, recently independe...
26 citations
TL;DR: The character of Finnish political culture stems from the country's specific position as a polity which emerged in the interface between Sweden and Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Abstract: The character of Finnish political culture stems from the country’s specific position as a polity which emerged in the interface between Sweden and Russia. Western, or Scandinavian, by institutions and structures and Eastern by dependence on a multinational empire in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries, this minority region in the Russian empire underwent a bloody civil war in 1918, in the wake of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. The resulting ambiguity between ‘national’ and ‘not national’, between what was Finland’s ‘own’ and what was ‘alien’, remained a central dimension defining Finnish political culture, due to the strength of the communists in Finland and their close relation to the Soviet Union. What remains today, in the conditions of Finland’s membership in the European Union, is a deep-seated attitude stressing the need to adapt to perceived necessities and constraints induced from outside.
22 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors trace developments in Jeffrey Alexander's cultural sociology and introduce the reader to the key components of this theory as it developed from a functionalist focus on societal values through semiotics and linguistic structuralism to a theory of cultural trauma and collective performance.
Abstract: This paper traces developments in Jeffrey Alexander’s cultural sociology. The aim is to introduce the reader to the key components of this theory as it developed from a functionalist focus on societal values through semiotics and linguistic structuralism to a theory of cultural trauma and collective performance.
20 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider and evaluate Jeffrey Alexander's strong program in cultural sociology, which represents an exercise in paradigm formation and an ambitious attempt to refound American sociology along interpretive lines, and assess cultural sociology according to four axes, namely its social constructivist epistemology, culturalizing methodology, analytical realism, and internal and external positioning.
Abstract: This paper considers and evaluates Jeffrey Alexander’s strong program in cultural sociology, which represents an exercise in paradigm formation and an ambitious attempt to refound American sociology along interpretive lines. Cultural sociology is assessed according to four axes, namely its social constructivist epistemology, culturalizing methodology, analytical realism, and internal and external positioning. In addition to discussing the accomplishments and limitations of cultural sociology in all these areas, the paper indicates ways to strengthen it by setting it in conversation with other and more explicitly critical currents of thought.
TL;DR: In the context of present debates, it seems most appropriate to read his work as an original and comprehensive version of civilizational analysis (the key concept of ‘umran is crucial to this line of interpretation), and to reconstruct his model in terms of relations between religious, political and economic dimensions of the human condition.
Abstract: Ibn KhaldOun’s theory of history has been extensively discussed and interpreted in widely divergent ways by Western scholars. In the context of present debates, it seems most appropriate to read his work as an original and comprehensive version of civilizational analysis (the key concept of ‘umran is crucial to this line of interpretation), and to reconstruct his model in terms of relations between religious, political and economic dimensions of the human condition. A specific relationship between state formation and the broader context of civilizational processes appears as the most central theme. This civilizational approach is then contrasted with the most influential recent Western interpretation, put forward by Ernest Gellner. Gellner translates Ibn KhaldOun’s analysis into functionalist terms and thus tones down its historical and civilizational specificity. The consequences are most obvious when it comes to discussing the unity and diversity of the Islamic world, especially with regard to the Ottom...
TL;DR: In Iran, a stalemate has prevailed: the society is post-Islamist, whereas the decisive power centres are controlled by Islamist conservatives as mentioned in this paper, and a generation which did not take part in the revolution has emerged in Iran.
Abstract: During the last quarter of a century, Iran has undergone fundamental changes. The revolution was supported by a heterogeneous coalition of social forces, but it led to a war with Iraq and the stabilization of an Islamic regime. Since the end of the 1980s, four different types of new social actors have emerged in Iran: post-Islamist intellectuals; feminists; students as a nonrevolutionary, reformist and democratically minded group; and ethnic movements. These actors mostly (with the exception of some intellectuals) belong to a generation which did not take part in the revolution; their aspirations and demands are totally different from those most characteristic of the revolutionary phase. The election of President Khatami in 1997 was a result of these changes. Since then, a stalemate has prevailed: the society is post-Islamist, whereas the decisive power centres are controlled by Islamist conservatives.
TL;DR: In Remembrance of Things Past, Proust offers an understanding of action that is more sensitive to contingency, self-reflexivity, change, desire and the layering of the self as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Commentators are in general agreement that Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of habitus and practice is too deterministic, but they have failed to provide a workable template for revisions. Here the French novelist Marcel Proust is proposed as a phenomenological corrective. There are strong family resemblances between his approach to social life and that of Bourdieu. In Remembrance of Things Past, however, Proust offers an understanding of action that is more sensitive to contingency, self-reflexivity, change, desire and the layering of the self. Attention to this will pay dividends for those seeking to creatively reconstruct Bourdieu’s project.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors trace the metamorphoses of Norwegian reformism during the last two centuries and show that shifting political regimes have to a remarkable extent been accompanied by s...
Abstract: This article traces the metamorphoses of Norwegian reformism during the last two centuries. In the Norwegian system, the shifting political regimes have to a remarkable extent been accompanied by s...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors traced the history of the Ottoman and Safavid empires back to the Middle Period of Islamic history, focusing on their origins in the chieftaincies and the hybrid cultural formations of the Anatolian regions.
Abstract: Tracing the history of the Ottoman and Safavid empires back to the Middle Period of Islamic history, this article focuses on their origins in the chieftaincies and the hybrid cultural formations of the Anatolian regions. While considering the inter/intracivilizational historical context of their respective rise to power, it is argued that the structural makeup of the empires differed primarily in their disparate forms of Sufi-knightly cultures, identified here as knightly-heroic (Ottoman) and millenarian-populist (Safavid), which is essentially tied to two distinctive types of tribal political organizations: frontierchieftaincy (Ottoman) and sectarian-chieftaincy (Safavid). Although the original Ottoman and Safavid chieftaincies, based on the militant Ghazi and Qizilbash orders, dissolved once the roaming bands of warriors were replaced by more settled military formations in the course of long-term state-building processes, the influence of their Sufi-knightly cultural heritages is still manifest in moder...
TL;DR: The authors argue that the long-standing tension in Jeffrey Alexander's work between theoretical multidimensionality and socio-cultural idealism has intensified in his recent writings, to problematical effect.
Abstract: This article argues that the long-standing tension in Jeffrey Alexander’s work between theoretical multidimensionality and socio-cultural idealism has intensified in his recent writings, to problematical effect. Whilst Alexander has shifted of late towards a more substantive and normative style of thinking, his new emphases continue to be grounded in arguments pitched at the general theoretical level. One of these involves a particular reading of the nature of post-positivist meta-theory today, and the other, within this, is a determined effort to distinguish a project of ‘cultural sociology’ from ‘sociology of culture’ approaches. I take issue with both of these theoretical moves, showing that they are rhetorically and conceptually flawed, and of a strongly idealist cast. They also run counter to those aspects of Alexander’s outlook that do seem more robustly multidimensional and sociologically promising.
TL;DR: This paper argued that Islam and Islamism both demonstrate an affinity with modernity as defined by Castoriadis, in the shariainstitution of a legal autonomy in the West.
Abstract: In the context of nationalizing, secularizing or Kemalist states, analyses of Islamist movements are often thrown back on notions of traditionalism or atavism. In a related vein, for certain social theorists writing on modernity, the uniqueness of the West is clarified through an imaginative [mis]interpretation of other cultures or civilizations. Too often, however, the apparent gains in Western self-insight reflect an ‘inability to constitute oneself without excluding the other’ (Cornelius Castoriadis). Ironically Castoriadis himself, in a project we might term an ethnography of the West (see his writings on ecology, capitalism, rationality, contemporary culture, racism, Greek philosophy/history, and the environment) is prone to the same vice, especially in his identification of the West as the sole autonomous society. This article argues that in the shariainstitution of a legal autonomy, Islam and Islamism alike demonstrate an affinity with modernity as defined by Castoriadis. In the light of this Islam...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors deal with the empirical example of how social subjects, in this case women, have appropriated the language of rights in order to demand social inclusion, and how women's struggles have gained consensus about the importance of defending the idea of rights for their own struggles to overcome their exclusion.
Abstract: This article deals with the empirical example of how social subjects, in this case women, have appropriated the language of rights in order to demand social inclusion. Since there are many different points of view in feminist theory with regard to how to deal with the idea of women’s rights, this article is divided into three sections. In the first section, I focus on how some important normative contents about democracy and rights have already been accepted by many different theorists who speak from critical perspectives. In the second section, I deal with how women’s struggles have gained consensus about the importance of defending the idea of rights for their own struggles to overcome their exclusion. In the third and last section, I turn back to the theoretical efforts by leading feminists, in order to show how these struggles from women all over the world can be thematized in our global scenario
TL;DR: Alexander's invitation to a sociology of evil began from the premise that the social sciences have long neglected direct analyses of evil as discussed by the authors, focusing instead on questions of the good and tr...
Abstract: Alexander’s invitation to a sociology of evil begins from the premise that the social sciences have long neglected direct analyses of evil. They have focused instead on questions of the good and tr...
TL;DR: In this paper, a cultural sociology that goes beyond hermeneutic reading to an understanding of how cultural texts are instantiated in action is considered in relation to earlier attempts to...
Abstract: Alexander’s call for a cultural sociology that goes beyond hermeneutic reading to an understanding of how cultural texts are instantiated in action is considered in relation to earlier attempts to ...
TL;DR: In this paper, a theory of subjectivity and social consciousness that complements prevalent debates in cultural studies about marginality and subjectivity is presented. But the authors do not consider the social processes in global market capitalism through returning to class formation.
Abstract: This article outlines a theory of subjectivity and social consciousness that complements prevalent debates in cultural studies about marginality and subjectivity. The article suggests that we can interpret the constitution of subjectivity sociologically as between the nation-state and global market integration. More broadly, we can think about social processes in global market capitalism through returning to class formation. The article draws upon research conducted in Morocco from 1995-97 and again in 2000-02 to illustrate social transformation in market reform.
TL;DR: The question of what kind of ethics are possible when it is assumed that the one who is assumed to be a good person is also a bad person is one of the good people.
Abstract: Multiculturalism is, among other things, an attitude toward values - hence, an ethic of a kind. The question it poses, however, is what kind of ethics are possible when it is assumed that the one w...
Journal Article•
TL;DR: The relationship between the rational public sphere and the spheres of entertainment and popular culture has been explored in this paper, where cultural studies of popular genre such as television talk shows reveal that, rather than exhibiting universal characteristics of liberal-democratic society, these public cultural performances reproduce the particularities of national differences.
Abstract: Alexander has made a major contribution to the development of a neo-Durkheimian cultural sociology. Two central elements have been: the semiotic analysis of sacred symbols and rituals that evoke the solidarity attached to the idealized nation; analysis of structures and processes that constitute a civil society. Some questions can be raised. The first concerns the tensions between ethnic-nationalisms and the kind of culture of civil society that is said to be congruent with the liberal-democratic state. Secondly, not all groups share the binary constructions of the civil code of liberal democracy. Thirdly, more attention needs to be given to the relationship between the rational public sphere and the spheres of entertainment and popular culture. Cultural studies of popular genre, such as television talk shows, reveal that, rather than exhibiting universal characteristics of liberal-democratic society, these public cultural performances reproduce the particularities of national differences.